The UK is surrounded by some of the world’s busiest seas, with the English Channel alone accounting for up to 20% of global maritime trade and connecting the Atlantic Ocean to the North Sea. This means that there is an ever-present risk of a pollution incident.
The Marine Management Organisation (MMO) is part of a response community ready to react to marine pollution incidents. “We approve the use of oil spill treatment products, sit on groups to advise on the environmental impact and keep wider government briefed on developments during an incident,” says David Patrick, digital communications manager, MMO.
Thankfully, major incidents rarely occur, he points out. “[However], to ensure preparedness and test out processes, we regularly take part in training exercises. These can range from small local exercises to major cross-government scenarios that can last multiple days.”
In one week-long training exercise in Portland, offshore supply vessel Ocean Osprey and MMO officers worked in conjunction with the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCA), providing participants with an overview of how offshore counter pollution equipment is deployed and operated on the shoreline, at sea and the harbour area. During this drill, beach booming and recovery equipment were used, as these are deployed in real incidents to help contain and remove oil from the sea surface.
VIRTUAL EMERGENCY, REAL THREAT
The exercise included working on the Ministry of Defence (MOD) training ship Sir Tristram and undertaking, among other issues, chemical detection training in a ‘dead ship’ environment. Most of the tasks involved working on a variety of vessels under the instruction of experienced and qualified staff from the agency. “We worked with MCA on this training, as it is vital that we understand oil containment and recovery systems, in case we need to react to an incident at any time,” states principal marine officer Patrick Gray from MMO, who attended the training day.
“The exercise provided some valuable experience for our officers and they gained an appreciation for the logistics that go on during an operation. During the exercise, we used a giant inflatable counter-pollution kit named the ‘Current Buster 6’, which is around 65 metres long, with a sweep opening of 34 metres.
“The system consists of an inflatable boom with a decanting arrangement and a pump system for transferring the collected oil from the separator area [the separation chamber is 70m3] on board the vessel. It is capable of collecting 64 tonnes of oil, which can then be skimmed off and pumped into storage, leaving the clean water to flow back into the sea.
“It was fascinating to see this remarkable piece of equipment in action,” adds Gray,” as it had never actually been used for a spill in the UK before and, fingers crossed, we will never have to use it in the future.”
PLANS PUT TO THE TEST
Representatives of the UK offshore industry also participated in a large-scale pollution simulation initiative in summer 2022: to test the response to a major oil and gas industry incident within the UK Exclusive Economic Zone (EEZ). The aim was to assess and verify the UK’s National Contingency Plan (NCP) in gauging the scale and efficacy of reaction to marine pollution from shipping and offshore installations, under “hybrid working conditions”.
The UK must meet many national and international legal obligations to plan and prepare for pollution and salvage, and the NCP was established to address part of these obligations. First, however, who actually bears primary responsibility for ensuring they do not pollute the sea? This falls to the owners and masters of ships and the operators of offshore installations, while port and harbour authorities are likewise accountable for ensuring their areas operate in a manner that avoids marine pollution. All are liable for responding to incidents within their areas of jurisdiction.
However, these parties may well face problems that exceed the response capabilities they “can reasonably maintain by themselves and their contractors, and UK government may support the response using national assets”, points out the UK National Contingency Plan: Exercise Phoenix Report (www.is.gd/irawuv), which examined the multi-agency initiative.
Involving government departments, local authorities, the oil and gas industry and contractor organisations, Exercise Phoenix envisioned a platform supply vessel (PSV) striking the Solan production platform, about 80 miles west of Sumburgh, Shetland. “Personnel were rescued from the PSV before it sank and an injured person on board the Solan was evacuated to Shetland. Containers and drill pipes from the PSV impacted the Subsea Oil Storage Tank, resulting in a hole and an uncontrolled release of oil,” says the report.
How the situation was handled and brought under control was declared successful. “The improvement in availability of technical solutions and the familiarity of participants to the use of online software was of particular note since Exercise Celtic Deep [which in 2020 tested the NCP for marine pollution from shipping and offshore installations] and is a testament to the time spent by organisations developing reliable systems, but also to individuals for adapting to a changing normal.”
Yet the report also acknowledges that “resourcing issues for responding organisations was challenging at times and created pressure points which could have contributed to heightened stress for responders or create confusion in regard to roles and responsibilities. This can be compounded by individuals carrying out dual roles, particularly in the case of being in the planning/command team and responding”. The report concludes that the exercise “showed that a hybrid response to an incident is highly achievable and effective, and is likely to be the default position for incident response in future”.
PREPARING FOR AN EMERGENCY
The government, for its part, wants to see a future where all organisations are fully prepared for every type of emergency. “Exercising is not to catch people out,” says government guidance (see link).“It tests procedures, not people. If staff are under-prepared, they may blame the plan, when they should blame their lack of preparation and training. An important aim of an exercise should be to make people feel more comfortable in their roles and to build morale.”